Managing vehicle brake system

Abstract

Managing a brake system of a vehicle includes collecting sensor data from one or more sensors in or around the vehicle, calculating brake effectiveness values based on the sensor data, calibrating the brake effectiveness values based on environmental context data associated with the vehicle, accumulating the calibrated brake effectiveness values as a dataset, generating a prediction curve or formula based the dataset, and scheduling a maintenance alarm for the brake system based on the brake effectiveness values.

What is claimed is: 
     
       1. A system for managing a brake system of a vehicle adapted to travel on a road surface, said system comprising:
 one or more processors; a memory, coupled to the one or more processors, the memory storing processor-executable program instructions; and 
 one or more sensors, coupled to the one or more processors and the memory, the one or more sensors configured to collect brake-related sensor data associated with the vehicle while traveling on said road surface, wherein the one or more processors, when executing the program instructions, are configured to: 
 collect the brake-related sensor data from the one or more sensors; 
 calculate brake effectiveness values based on the brake-related sensor data; 
 use a calibration model to obtain a calibration factor value, said calibration model generated based on a pre-determined relationships between a environmental context data and said brake-related sensor data associated with the vehicle, said environmental context data including a combination of: road surface material data and a weather precipitation type data, and 
 apply said obtained calibration factor value to a brake effectiveness value of said calculated brake effectiveness values to calibrate said brake effectiveness value; and 
 generate, at said vehicle, a maintenance alarm signal indicating a maintenance time for the brake system based on the calibrated brake effectiveness value, wherein to calibrate the brake effectiveness value, the one or more processors are further configured to: 
 classify the brake effectiveness values into one or more data groups, each group based on a different combination of the environmental context data; and 
 add the calibration value to at least one brake effectiveness value, wherein to obtain the calibration value said one or more processors are further configured to: 
 obtain a respective brake effectiveness function representing a pre-determined relationship between a respective environmental context data and brake-related sensor data; 
 obtain a reference brake effectiveness function associated with a selected environmental context data group against which the brake effectiveness values of other data groups are calibrated; and 
 generate the calibration factor value based on a deviation between said respective brake effectiveness function and said reference brake effectiveness function. 
 
     
     
       2. The system of  claim 1 , wherein the one or more processors are further configured to: accumulate the calibrated brake effectiveness values as a dataset; and generate a prediction curve or formula based on the dataset. 
     
     
       3. The system of  claim 2 , wherein the one or more processors are configured to: determine that the brake effectiveness value in the prediction curve or formula reaches a predetermined threshold value; and generate the maintenance alarm, in response to reaching the predetermined threshold value. 
     
     
       4. The system of  claim 1 , wherein the sensor data comprises: brake-related sensor data selected from a group including a speed variation of the vehicle, a time duration for when the speed variation occurs, a brake pedal path, a relative relief, and a weight of the vehicle. 
     
     
       5. The system of  claim 1 , wherein the environmental context data includes the road surface material data and the weather data and air temperature data, the road surface material data and the weather data being provided by external sources, and wherein the air temperature data is provided by at least one of the vehicle sensors. 
     
     
       6. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having computer readable program instructions embodied therewith, the computer readable program instructions executable by at least one processor to cause a computer to perform a method, the method comprising: collecting brake-related sensor data from one or more sensors in or around a vehicle; calculating brake effectiveness values based on the brake-related sensor data; using a calibration model to obtain a calibration factor value, said calibration model generated based on a pre-determined relationship between an environmental context data and said brake-related sensor data associated with the vehicle, said environmental context data including a combination of: road surface material data and a weather precipitation type data, and
 applying said obtained calibration factor value to a brake effectiveness value of said calculated brake effectiveness values to calibrate said brake effectiveness value; and 
 generating, at said vehicle, a maintenance alarm signal indicating a maintenance time for the brake system based on the calibrated brake effectiveness value, wherein to calibrate the brake effectiveness value, the computer readable program instructions executable by at least one processor further cause the computer to perform: 
 classifying the brake effectiveness values into one or more data groups, each group based on a different combination of the environmental context data; and 
 adding the calibration factor value to at least one brake effectiveness value, wherein to obtain the calibration factor value said computer further performs: 
 obtaining a respective brake effectiveness function representing a pre-determined relationship between a respective environmental context data and brake-related sensor data; 
 obtaining a reference brake effectiveness function associated with a selected environmental context data group against which the brake effectiveness values of other data groups are calibrated; and 
 generating the calibration factor value based on a deviation between said respective brake effectiveness function and said reference brake effectiveness function. 
 
     
     
       7. The computer program product of  claim 6 , where the method further comprises: accumulating the calibrated brake effectiveness values as a dataset; and generating a prediction curve or formula based on the dataset. 
     
     
       8. The computer program product of  claim 7 , wherein the method further comprises: determining that the brake effectiveness value in the prediction curve or formula reaches a predetermined threshold value; and generating the maintenance alarm, in response to reaching the predetermined threshold value. 
     
     
       9. The computer program product of  claim 6 , wherein the brake-related sensor data is selected from a group including a speed variation of the vehicle, a time duration for when the speed variation occurs, a brake pedal path, a relative relief, and a weight of the vehicle.